Toward Water Sustainability:
A Blueprint for Philanthropy
March 2016
Note from the Foundations
As the leaders of eight U.S. foundations, we believe philanthropy must play a vital role in the transition to water
systems that are more balanced and resilient in the 21st century. Clean, reliable water is essential for every
person, economy, and ecosystem, but around the world and here at home, our freshwater resources confront
rising demands and mounting threats due to climate change, population growth, pollution, and other stressors.
Our foundations have converged on the issue of water from many different directions. Some of us view water
primarily through the lens of public health and social equity. Others are focused on environmental quality and
biodiversity, while still others concentrate on energy or sustainable development. We are working together
because we all recognize that tackling water challenges will be essential for making progress on many of the
environmental, social, and economic problems that our foundations and others are dedicated to solving.
The good news is that we already know how to manage our water more sustainably. Better policies, new
technologies, and collaborative approaches have shown that, in an era of extreme weather and increasingly
uncertain supplies, we can use and protect our precious water resources more wisely.
Strategic grantmaking has already supported critical reforms and innovative management practices, but with
the pressures on our water systems only intensifying, we believe funders must help accelerate this progress
and seize new opportunities to transform our relationship with water. Investments in water solutions by the
philanthropic, public, and private sectors are simply not measuring up to the escalating challenges we face.
Recognizing the urgent need to solve water problems at scale, our foundations have supported the Water
Funder Initiative, a collaborative effort to identify and activate promising water solutions through strategic
philanthropic investments in the United States, starting in the American West, where scarcity and reliability of
clean water are urgent issues.
The Water Funder Initiative has developed this blueprint as a starting point for funders interested in working on
water in the West—and beyond. The blueprint recognizes there is no silver bullet for solving water challenges.
Approaches may vary greatly from watershed to watershed. Common solutions must be adapted to local
conditions. But there is broad agreement that the six priority strategies outlined in this report will be essential for
addressing current and growing water supply and quality problems.
We hope other foundations—as well as funders in the private and public sectors—will join us in committing
more resources to advancing water solutions and tackling one of the defining issues of our time. Philanthropy
can’t do it all, but funders can take risks, invest patient capital, and bring together stakeholders to achieve
durable solutions. Fortunately, we still have time to act and ensure that our water supplies support healthy
communities, sustainable economies, and vibrant ecosystems.
Lauren B. Dachs, President
S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation
Katherine Lorenz, President
The Cynthia and George
Mitchell Foundation
Eric Heitz, President
Energy Foundation
David Beckman, President
Pisces Foundation
Larry Kramer, President
The William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation
Judith Rodin, President
The Rockefeller Foundation
Barry Gold, Director,
Environment Program
Walton Family Foundation
Lester Snow, Executive Director
Water Foundation
Toward Water Sustainability:
A Blueprint for Philanthropy
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive summary3
I. Introduction: the need and opportunity in water
6
A watershed moment for philanthropy6
Guide to document 7
II. Vision and goals8
Balance and resilience: two long-term goals for water sustainability
8
Windows of opportunities for near-term change
9
Integrating sectors: urban, agriculture, environment, and energy
10
III. Priority strategies for philanthropy
12
Shape healthy water markets14
Develop new funding sources15
Improve water governance16
Drive decisions with data17
Strengthen communications and build political will
18
Accelerate innovation19
IV. Funding action plans20
California Drought Funding Action Plan23
Lower Colorado River Basin Funding Action Plan
24
Data Funding Action Plan24
Impact Investment Funding Action Plan25
Communications and Political Will Funding Action Plan
26
Water Markets Funding Action Plan26
V. A collaborative approach for philanthropy
27
Building the field27
Collaborative approaches 27
Appendix 1: Water Funder Initiative Steering Committee
Appendix 2: List of experts consulted
29
30
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
3
Executive summary
This document offers a blueprint for collaborative and expanded philanthropic action to advance
sustainable water management at a scale never before attempted in the water field. The blueprint was
developed by the Water Funder Initiative (WFI), an effort launched by a group of foundations that recognizes
the urgent need to solve water problems. WFI is a collaborative initiative to identify and activate promising
water solutions through strategic philanthropic investments in the United States, starting in the West where
scarcity and reliability of clean water are urgent issues.
Water is the essence of life and vital to the well-being of every person, economy, and ecosystem on
the planet. But around the globe and here in the United States, water challenges are mounting as climate
change, population growth, and other drivers of water stress increase. Public, private, and philanthropic
investment in water solutions has not been commensurate with the challenges we face. This underinvestment has led to heightened conflicts and costly litigation among water users as drought and other
extreme weather have caused billions of dollars in damage. Precipitous declines in water supplies—both
above and below ground—simply cannot be sustained, nor can we continue operating with deteriorating
infrastructure and outdated policies that further jeopardize human communities and freshwater ecosystems.
Philanthropy can—and must—play a more pivotal role in addressing 21st century water challenges.
Effective, strategic, and collaborative grantmaking already has made a difference by advancing critical policy
reforms and new water management practices in some places. But with the pressures intensifying, now is
the time for the field to rapidly scale up this progress and transform our relationship with water from reactive
crisis management to long-term sustainability.
WFI is starting with a focus on the American West, where nearly a third of the nation’s people and
GDP depend on increasingly unreliable water supplies. In this region, as in many other parts of the
world, risks are rising for cities, rural economies, low-income communities, recreational industries, and
natural freshwater systems. Although the initial focus is on the American West, many of the approaches
are applicable elsewhere in the world, and lessons from other regions can help solve water problems
confronting the West.
Vision and goals
WFI envisions a sustainable water future where:
• Clean water supplies are available for people and nature.
• Freshwater ecosystems are recovering.
• Cities, agriculture, rural communities, and industry continue to thrive by proactively managing the
water supply risks that accompany population growth and a changing climate.
To realize this vision, we must achieve two goals:
1) Bring basins into balance for people and nature. We must use existing supplies more carefully
so that, over the long term, we use no more water than is available and our supplies can support
vibrant ecosystems, communities, and economies.
2) Strengthen resilience of water systems in a 21st century climate. Extremes are becoming the
norm as the planet warms, and many of climate change’s impacts will manifest through the
hydrological cycle. Water management systems must be flexible and resilient enough to cope
with times of water stress and mitigate risks to water users.
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
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Priority strategies for philanthropy
Over the past year, WFI has been gathering the most promising ideas from across the American West—and
from a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including NGO experts, policymakers, funders, scientists, farmers,
tribal leaders, attorneys, water utility executives, and others. More than 140 people have contributed through
individual interviews and six WFI workshops in Arizona, California, Colorado, and Texas.
These consultations have highlighted critical windows of opportunity for reform, and have pointed the way
to the following priority strategies that can achieve the goals of balance and resilience in our water systems:
• Shape healthy water markets: Meet changing needs, reduce over-allocation, and embed
social equity and environmental considerations into fair and transparent markets.
• Develop new funding sources: Expand and diversify funding for sustainable water management
and infrastructure, including by properly valuing water.
• Improve water governance: Promote governance structures that reduce over-allocation, protect
environmental values, support disadvantaged communities, and respond to climate variability.
• Drive decisions with data: Accelerate the development of open data and information systems
to support sustainable management.
• Strengthen communications and build political will: Improve the field’s strategic
communications capacity and build the political will and constituencies needed to support
water management reforms.
• Accelerate innovation: Accelerate development and deployment of innovative technologies and
practices to advance goals in the urban, agricultural, environmental, and energy sectors.
Figure ES-1:
From goals and priority strategies to funding action plans
Bring basins into balance for people and nature
Strengthen resilience of water systems
Shape healthy water markets
Improve water governance
Develop new funding sources
Drive decisions with data
California
Drought
Lower
Colorado
River Basin
Data
Strengthen communications
and build political will
Accelerate innovation
Communications
Impact
Investment and Political Will*
Water
Markets*
*Being developed
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
5
Funding action plans
To ramp up implementation of the priority strategies and advance sustainable water management,
coordinated philanthropic action is urgently needed. WFI is working with funders, grantees, and other
partners to develop detailed funding action plans for philanthropy to advance the priority strategies in the
near term while laying the groundwork for longer-term systemic change.
The set of actions in the funding action plans vary according to the strategy, current circumstances, and
geography. In some cases, such as data and communications, the plans describe Westwide opportunities to
strengthen tools or approaches. By contrast, the regionally focused action plans addressing the California
drought and Lower Colorado River Basin help advance multiple priority strategies in a specific place and are
tailored to suit the regional conditions. The blueprint summarizes each of these plans and their current state
of development.
Additional plans—and campaigns and activities within the plans—will be developed based on the field’s
needs, funder interests, opportunities to make progress, and other factors.
A collaborative approach for philanthropy
Funders of all types—from individual donors to community foundations to the largest philanthropies—can
play a crucial role in addressing 21st century water challenges and help ensure that cities, farms, rural
residents, and wildlife all have access to the clean water they need to thrive in a changing climate.
First and foremost, the field needs the capacity to implement the strategies and funding action plans
described in this blueprint. We need capable, adequately resourced practitioners, experts, and champions
to pursue advocacy campaigns, conduct research, represent stakeholders, communicate solutions,
explore new ideas, accelerate innovation, and lead all of the other activities that will ensure individuals and
institutions make the right water management decisions, day in and day out.
Inherent in the ambition and structure of this blueprint is the recognition that no single philanthropic entity
can successfully pursue this set of activities alone. To change entrenched systems across the West and
fundamentally transform water management, funders and their grantees will need to partner with other
organizations, businesses, and government—and, most importantly, with each other.
Ultimately, greater coordination and collaboration in water philanthropy can result in greater and more
effective funding for scalable solutions to today’s water problems. Funders working together can deliver
powerful messages to policymakers and industry, leverage public and private sector funding, and identify
entry points for funders eager to engage. In other fields, ranging from climate change to public health, we
have seen how funders can effectively work together to identify priorities, share lessons learned, fill gaps,
and complement each other’s strategies. Water issues are ripe—indeed overdue—for philanthropic attention.
With population growth, climate change, and other pressures mounting, the field must scale up its successes
and seize this unique window of opportunity to transform how we manage water. Together, we can support
healthy ecosystems, vibrant economies, and sustainable water systems that are balanced and resilient.
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
6
I. Introduction: the need and opportunity in water
A watershed moment for philanthropy
Water is the essence of life and vital to every person, economy, and ecosystem on the planet. But around
the globe, freshwater resources are being stretched beyond their limits, leading the World Economic Forum
in 2015 to list water crises as “the biggest threat facing the planet over the next decade.” From Australia to
Yemen, acute water shortages have struck at the heart of national economies. Globally, nearly one billion
people lack access to improved drinking water supplies, according to the World Health Organization.
The United States confronts its own mounting water challenges. At least 40 states will face some type
of regional water shortage in the next 10 years, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
Nowhere in the nation is the situation more worrisome than in the American West, where major rivers
such as the Colorado are severely over-allocated. In California and Texas, epic droughts have revealed
the vulnerability of municipal supplies, inflicted deep damage on agriculture, and depleted groundwater
aquifers. More than 80% of the West’s original riparian habitat is gone, as are many endemic fish species.
Critical rivers and coastal estuaries that depend on freshwater inflows are also unraveling as human water
use is increasing.
The drivers of water stress are intensifying. Population growth is adding new demands. Climate change
is exacerbating both droughts and flooding, thinning the snowpack, and increasing temperatures, which
can lead to more evaporation from reservoirs and higher water demand. Some sources of freshwater are
unavailable for human use due to past or continuing pollution. Because water is intertwined with so many
social, economic, and environmental issues, tackling the world’s water challenges will be essential for
making progress in health, energy, urbanization, and the food supply (Figure 1).
Figure 1:
Water is integral to social, economic,and environmental issues
Ecosystems depend
on healthy watersheds
Climate change increases
water security risks
Healthy rivers support
urban vitality
Unsafe water is a
public health threat
Local economies depend
on clean and secure water
Water use requires
energy; energy production
needs water
Water is essential
for food production
and rural economies
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
7
We have the knowledge and most of the tools needed to make progress on the problems that plague our
freshwater systems—and there is an essential role for philanthropy to play in advancing these solutions.
In California, for example, strategic philanthropic investments helped break decades of political gridlock
and supported passage of historic groundwater reforms. In the Colorado River Delta, intensive work by
foundations and NGOs led to an unprecedented binational agreement to rejuvenate the declining ecosystem
with restoration flows. In Texas, a collaborative effort among NGOs and foundations has elevated the profile
of water conservation and initiated a precedent-setting process to define environmental water needs for
rivers and bays.
Philanthropy can—and must—play a more pivotal role in addressing 21st century water challenges. Effective,
strategic, and collaborative grantmaking already has made a difference by advancing critical policy reforms
and new water management practices. But with external pressures only mounting, the field must rapidly
scale up this progress and take advantage of opportunities to transform our relationship with water.
Recognizing the urgent need to solve water problems at scale, a group of foundations launched the Water
Funder Initiative. WFI is a collaborative effort to identify and activate promising water solutions through
strategic philanthropic investments in the United States, starting in the West, where scarcity and reliability of
clean water are urgent issues.
WFI is supported and guided by the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, Energy Foundation, the William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation, the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation,
Pisces Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, and Water Foundation. WFI is
led by Susan Bell, Principal of Susan Bell & Associates and former Vice President of the William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation. A small team with diverse expertise is executing the project, working in partnership with
a Steering Committee of foundation representatives.
WFI is a project of these funders, and the focus of this 15-month effort has been to:
1) Identify priority strategies for water-related philanthropy.
2) Engage funders and support coordinated action on priority strategies.
3) Increase support for priority strategies over time.
Guide to document
In Section II, we describe the goals for philanthropy’s
engagement in water issues and outline an
approach focused on key geographies, starting in
the American West.
In Section III, we summarize six priority strategies,
including potential roles and near-term opportunities
for philanthropy.
Section IV summarizes funding action plans, which
describe near-term opportunities where philanthropic
investment can advance the priority strategies.
Goals
Priority Strategies
Funding Action Plans
Section V describes approaches for funders to
work together to increase both the magnitude and
effectiveness of water-related grantmaking so that
philanthropy can help shift water systems toward
sustainable management.
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
8
II. Vision, goals, and strategic approach
Balance and resilience: two long-term goals for water sustainability
The American West, where WFI has focused its efforts thus far, is a complex, diverse landscape that ranges
from deserts to rainforests and defies any simple definition, but much of the region faces inherent water
challenges due to its aridity and highly variable precipitation.
California confronts both an acute crisis from the drought and the chronic challenge of sustainably meeting
the water demands of nearly 40 million residents and a $54 billion agricultural economy. The Colorado
River supplies water for about 40 million people and irrigates over 4 million acres of land. It is already
over-allocated, and scientists project that climate change will further reduce the river’s flow due to rising
temperatures and a shrinking snowpack. Texas has whipsawed between severe drought and deadly flooding
in recent years as the state contends with a changing climate and a population expected to double from 25
million to 50 million by 2060.
Policymakers, water managers, industry executives, NGO leaders, tribes, and others are seeking new ways
to sustainably meet the water needs of cities, farms, energy providers, rural residents, and ecosystems.
WFI’s vision is to employ powerful, coordinated philanthropic action to shift the trajectory of our water
systems from continued degradation toward a sustainable future in which (Figure 2):
• Clean water supplies are available for people and nature.
• Freshwater ecosystems are recovering.
• Cities, agriculture, rural communities, and industry continue to thrive by proactively managing
the water supply risks that accompany population growth and a changing climate.
Figure 2:
Sustainable solutions change the trajectory
Desired state:
Execute campaign
Create sense of urgency
Build capacity
fo
ns
o
i
ut
Sol
Water
system
health
Ba
rri
ers
Crisis and
event-driven
opportunities
y
lit
bi
a
in
ta
s
u
rs
rem
ain
, cr
isis
dec
isio
n-m
aking
Time
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
• Clean water is available
for people and nature
• Freshwater systems
are recovering
• Cities, agriculture, and
businesses manage
water well and thrive
9
To realize this vision, we must achieve two primary goals:
1) B
ring basins into balance for people and nature. We must use existing supplies more carefully so
that, over the long term, we use no more water than is available and our supplies can support vibrant
ecosystems, communities, and economies.
2) Strengthen resilience of water systems in a 21st century climate. Extremes are becoming the norm as
the planet warms, and many of climate change’s impacts will manifest through the hydrologic cycle.
We need water management systems that are flexible and resilient enough to cope with times of water
stress and mitigate risks to water users.
Although WFI is focusing first on the American West, many of the approaches may be applicable elsewhere
in the world, and lessons from other regions can help solve the water problems confronting the West.
Windows of opportunities for near-term change
Over the past year, WFI has been gathering the most promising ideas from across the American West—and
from a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including NGO experts, policymakers, funders, scientists, farmers,
tribal leaders, attorneys, water utility executives, and others. More than 140 people have contributed through
individual interviews and six WFI workshops in Arizona, California, Colorado, and Texas.
These consultations have highlighted critical windows of opportunity for reform. Extreme weather, growing
water demands, and other stresses are creating greater urgency to reform arcane policies and practices.
California’s drought, for example, served as the backdrop to monumental changes in groundwater
management. Dropping reservoir levels in Lake Mead, due to both over-use and prolonged drought, have
opened doors to new interstate and international agreements. Faced with reduced supplies imported from
Northern California and threats to the Colorado River’s supply, Los Angeles and its neighbors are increasingly
turning to conservation, reuse, and other strategies to reduce risk; similar changes are transpiring in Phoenix
and Tucson. In Texas, a decade of searing drought prompted new state funding for water conservation and
reuse while also illuminating weaknesses in the state’s groundwater management framework.
Woven through these advances is an increasing recognition that our weather is becoming more extreme
and dangerous. The exceptional droughts, floods, and higher temperatures of recent years are signs of the
new normal. Going forward, we need fresh approaches not only to address today’s immediate challenges
but also to strengthen resilience for the future. Accordingly, this blueprint for philanthropy acknowledges the
need to operate at several time scales. We describe near-term opportunities where philanthropy can play a
catalytic role by focusing coordinated action and resources where the urgency and political will for action
are currently greatest due to droughts, floods, and other risks to water users. We also position these shortterm investments within sustained programs that build toward the more ambitious and long-term goals of
achieving balance and resilience in a 21st century climate.
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Integrating sectors: urban, agriculture, environment, and energy
The West’s water use is traditionally divided into three main sectors: urban, agriculture, and environment.
A fourth sector—energy—is also closely tied to water because thermoelectric power plants need large
volumes of water; hydropower dams are a key source of renewable energy; and huge amounts of electricity
are needed to clean, deliver, and heat water. The priority strategies in this blueprint seek to integrate the
four sectors and ensure that water management meets multiple objectives for people, economies, and
ecosystems. Sustainable management will require improvements within these four sectors. Allowing water
to flow more easily among the sectors will improve the balance, resiliency, and health of the overall system.
Some of the challenges and opportunities for water management in each sector are highlighted below:
Urban: Cities and industry depend on reliable water supplies
and face major economic and social risks from water
disruptions. We already know how to improve urban efficiency
and there are many success stories, but the adoption of these
practices and policies is highly variable. Urban water-saving
measures, along with wastewater reuse and better stormwater
management, can reduce the need to import costly water from
distant rivers or aquifers. Beyond increasing efficiency, cities
can employ a full suite of approaches to reduce risks, including
better pricing structures and flexible water agreements with
agriculture. Improvements are also needed to ensure the
specific needs of low-income residents and small communities
are met.
Agriculture: The farming sector is the West’s biggest water
user, and many rural economies rely heavily on irrigated
agriculture. Improving irrigation efficiency can sometimes
help agriculture more effectively manage its water while also
improving crop yields and water quality. Other approaches
to managing agricultural water needs include using markets
or other incentives to affect crop choice, irrigation rates, and
other decisions. Modernizing how we manage water storage,
changing the timing of water deliveries, and pursuing other
integrated approaches are also promising opportunities
for meeting agricultural water needs without harming the
environment.
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Environment: Much of the West’s water development
occurred without full recognition or appreciation of the
water needs of ecosystems. Over the last few decades, there
has been progress in using market mechanisms to secure
water for rivers. Researchers have also made major strides
in determining the water needs of various ecosystems.
Nevertheless, there are still opportunities to better integrate
ecosystem restoration and floodplain management into
comprehensive water strategies to help reduce conflicts and
add flexibility. Proactively building nature’s needs into our
highly managed water systems, alongside the needs of cities
and farms, is crucial for strengthening the resilience of our
freshwater systems.
Energy: Sustainable water solutions are tied to energy, as
energy and water are closely linked. Power plants account for
about 40% of all U.S. water diversions. In California, one-fifth
of the state’s electricity and one-third of its non-electricity
natural gas go toward treating, supplying, and heating water.
Some water agencies derive a large share of their income from
hydropower sales; for other water providers, energy costs
dramatically affect their bottom line. The energy-water nexus
will be a critical arena for many sustainable water solutions,
and the energy sector’s experience with markets, incentives,
and other tools may provide helpful models for sustainable
water management.
ome of the most promising approaches to achieving balance and resilience hinge on better leveraging
S
the interdependence among these sectors. For instance, agricultural lands provide important sites for
groundwater recharge, which can improve dry-season flows for habitat and drought supplies for cities.
Healthy riparian areas can safely absorb impacts of flooding, thereby protecting farms and cities from
damage.
While the urban, agricultural, environmental, and energy sectors are the largest water users, rural
communities also need safe, reliable, and affordable water supplies. As solutions are developed to achieve
balance and resilience across the major sectors, site-specific attention is needed to ensure that rural users,
including tribes, have dependable access to healthy water.
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
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III. Priority strategies for philanthropy
WFI has identified six priority strategies for advancing water sustainability (see table below for summaries).
These strategies emerged from WFI’s network of experts and advisors based on each strategy’s urgency,
potential impact, and suitability for philanthropic influence. While the strategies do not encompass every
intervention related to water that funders could support, input from WFI’s network has yielded broad
agreement that making progress in these areas is essential for addressing 21st century water challenges.
These strategies will play out in the urban, agricultural, environmental, and energy sectors, improving water
management in each sector and strengthening integration across the sectors.
Priority Strategy Objective
Shape healthy
water markets
Meet changing needs, reduce
over-allocation, and embed
social equity and environmental
considerations into equitable and
transparent markets.
Desired Outcomes
• Water use and storage respond quickly
to changing circumstances and climate
variability, thereby increasing resilience
• Supply/demand imbalances are reduced
as markets encourage water-saving measures
• Rivers, fish and wildlife, and disadvantaged
communities benefit from transactions
Develop new
funding sources
Expand and diversify funding for
sustainable water management
and infrastructure, including by
properly valuing water.
• Irrigated agriculture is vibrant, productive,
and sustainable
• Water supply infrastructure is modernized
and properly maintained
• Increased funding is available to restore and
maintain ecosystems, provide safe water for
disadvantaged communities, and protect source
watersheds, thereby increasing resilience
• Increased private capital is invested in sustainable
water management practices and projects
• Public funding sources are diversified and stable
Improve water
governance
Promote governance structures
that reduce over-allocation,
protect environmental values,
support disadvantaged
communities, and respond to
climate variability.
• Management entities increasingly cooperate to
advance integrated, holistic, and watershed
approaches
• Management decisions are transparent
and equitable
• Management adapts to climate variability
• Proactive management achieves supply/demand
balance and increases resilience
Drive decisions
with data
Accelerate the development
of open data and information
systems to support sustainable
management.
• Data on water supply, use, and trends are
vastly improved and more transparent
• New technologies to collect and analyze data are
deployed at scale in key locations
• Better information and predictive models are used
to manage variability and support healthy markets
• Basin-scale water balances are tracked and reported
• Metrics for system resilience are identified
and tracked
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
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Priority Strategy Objective
Strengthen
communications
and build
political will
Accelerate
innovation
Desired Outcomes
Improve the field’s strategic
communications capacity
and build the political will,
constituencies, and leadership
needed to support water
management reforms.
• Leading decision-makers, water managers,
and water users support critical reforms
Accelerate development and
deployment of innovative
technologies and practices to
advance goals in the urban,
agricultural, environmental, and
energy sectors.
• Best practices that contribute to water
balance and resilience move quickly from the
demonstration stage to mainstream adoption
• Widespread public support for reforms motivates
and supports corrective actions
• Risks to communities, nature, and economies
due to over-allocation and a changing climate
are widely recognized
• Strong markets for low-water-use technologies
and practices are in place
• Farms, wildlife, cities, and other water users,
including rural communities, benefit from new
technologies and practices
Each priority strategy is required to achieve WFI’s goals, and the strategies are mutually dependent.
Shaping healthy markets advances a powerful tool for bringing water demands in line with supplies and
also allocates water resources in a more flexible and equitable manner. Developing new funding sources
builds the necessary financial resources for the full spectrum of management practices, technologies,
and infrastructure needed to achieve and maintain balance and resilience. Improving water governance
aligns oversight and management institutions with the new requirements and priorities that come with
sustainable management. Driving decisions with data is a fundamental precondition for effectively designing,
informing, and implementing efforts to bring basins into balance and increase resilience. Strengthening
communications and building political will undergirds all efforts, as a compelling case for change and
broad-based support are needed to advance meaningful—and durable—solutions. Accelerating innovations
positions water users to thrive in balanced basins with constrained supplies.
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
14
Shape healthy water markets
Objective: Meet changing needs, reduce over-allocation, and embed social equity and
environmental considerations into equitable and transparent markets.
Coping with more extreme weather and rapidly changing economies demands more flexible, adaptive water
management. As needs and priorities change, we need efficient and effective systems that can easily shift
water to different uses. These mechanisms are often described as “water markets,” but they include a range
of tools and transactions, including voluntary water trades, forbearance agreements, water banking systems,
and other instruments.
In the West, water law, institutions, and the structure of existing water rights can present major obstacles to
beneficial transactions and banking, either by impeding trades altogether or by increasing transaction costs.
Due to these obstacles, the West has a mixed record with water trading. High transaction costs mean wealthy
water users can disproportionally benefit from trades, while a lack of transparency can cause suspicion
among stakeholders and erode support for trading. Across the West, public and private dollars have been
committed to environmental water transactions. But a lack of navigable procedures, supportive institutions,
and solid information have impeded the widespread use of trading to meet environmental and other needs.
When properly constructed, water markets can be powerful change agents. They offer the chance to embed
equity and environmental objectives into water management, reduce long-term supply/demand imbalances,
and adapt to changes in climate and water demands. But simply establishing or encouraging markets is
not sufficient and could actually be counterproductive. Without appropriate controls, transactions could
have unintended adverse impacts on the environment, rural economies, and marginalized stakeholders.
Avoiding these adverse consequences for disadvantaged communities and vulnerable ecosystems requires
transparent processes, and ensuring the fair treatment of affected interests must be a central focus of
shaping healthy water markets.
Roles for philanthropy
In many places throughout the West, active markets do not yet exist and thus can be designed from the
outset to be flexible, transparent, and effective. In other places, existing markets need to be improved.
Philanthropy can help demonstrate the value of beneficial transactions and highlight needed reforms. In
addition, funders can support advocacy for healthy trading systems and strong institutions to manage them.
A key role for philanthropy is to ensure that enhanced markets and trading serve the needs of disadvantaged
communities and the environment.
Examples of near-term opportunities
•S
upport policy reform in California and Colorado to increase regulatory flexibility for transactions
while protecting against negative impacts to communities and the environment.
• Expand banking of surface water and groundwater by piloting market mechanisms and supporting
water banking efforts in the Upper Colorado River Basin.
•S
upport development and testing of voluntary water sharing systems.
• Advance environmental flow transactions through market approaches that allocate cooling water
from decommissioned coal plants to environmental and other water needs, and by shaping how
public funding affects environmental flows in Texas and California.
• Seed the creation of community water trusts to facilitate and engage in water transactions that
produce benefits such as environmental flows, lower risks for water users, and new revenue
streams for farms and ranches.
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Develop new funding sources
Objective: Expand and diversify funding for sustainable water management and infrastructure,
including by properly valuing water.
Sustainable water management isn’t free, and someone has to pay for it. Maintaining facilities, improving
operations, collecting data, communicating metrics, financing water transactions, and planning for the
future all are essential for sound water management—and all are chronically underfunded. Most water users
only pay the direct costs of water provision—not for broader measures that ensure a safe and secure supply
over time. Developing water-related funding is about more than fixing aging infrastructure. It is also about
funding all of the things that are necessary for a sustainable water future in a 21st century climate, including
protecting source watersheds and supporting agricultural water-savings.
Traditional funding sources, such as federal and state programs for infrastructure and environmental
restoration, are disappearing; what’s left often suffers from highly erratic funding levels. In some areas, stateissued bonds have funded important infrastructure and restoration projects. But these funds are notoriously
unreliable and do not support the long-term, routine investment that is needed for sustainable management.
Eventually, water users and those who benefit from water resources should pay most of these costs.
Roles for philanthropy
Philanthropy should not pay for the cost of water management itself, but it can help ensure that a combination
of public and private funding streams support the full range of activities, infrastructure, and protections needed
to maintain healthy and resilient water systems. Funders and grantees can help build public and political
will to expand funding for water by raising awareness of the fundamental role that water systems play in our
nation’s infrastructure and by broadening ratepayer understanding of water’s costs and values. Philanthropy
can support efforts to ensure that funding programs and fee structures are equitable and that disadvantaged
communities can afford their basic water needs.
To leverage increased public funding for water management, philanthropy can support new models and
targeted research that inform government funding policies, regulations, and allocations.
Philanthropy can work to better direct existing funding sources at the federal, state, and local levels, such as
federal Title XVI reclamation and reuse funds, and pursue opportunities to condition these funding sources
on water management improvements. Funders can also support efforts to test and demonstrate new
approaches.
Examples of near-term opportunities
•Build capacity of new “deal shops” and water trusts to find, structure, and finance model private
impact investment deals that benefit the environment.
•Advance efforts to establish a water fee to fund unmet infrastructure and management needs,
affordable basic supplies for disadvantaged communities, and enhanced drought resilience
in California.
•Support elected water officials and municipalities as they access innovative financing mechanisms
and implement rate structures that incentivize conservation while maintaining adequate revenue.
•Evaluate opportunities to reform municipal and green bond financing rules and rating systems to
steer capital toward more sustainable water projects.
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Improve water governance
Objective: Promote governance structures that reduce over-allocation, protect environmental
values, support disadvantaged communities, and respond to climate variability.
Oversight and management of water in the West are fragmented across many utilities, districts, and agencies
with overlapping, piecemeal, or uncoordinated management. This fragmentation often leads to inefficient
and contradictory decision making, and it can obscure the transparency needed for accountability.
Moreover, water institutions are typically incentivized to focus on a narrow set of local outcomes, making
it difficult to advance broader societal goals. Consequently, environmental water objectives are often
unaddressed until habitats are nearly gone or endangered species regulations force desperate responses.
Other weaknesses include management disconnects between surface water, groundwater, and land use.
Poor enforcement or implementation of existing laws and policies is another deficiency.
There is no one formula for improving water governance: it requires regional specialization to account for
local conditions, state laws, existing institutions, and established agreements. Strengthening governance
may require revising underlying laws or policies and reforming entrenched institutions. Work-arounds, such
as voluntary collaborations or financial contracts, may also be needed to bypass intractable bureaucracies.
Accordingly, advancing effective governance requires both near-term actions and longer-term efforts to
establish durable structures.
Roles for philanthropy
Coordinated and effective philanthropy is needed to generate salient research to inform decision making
and support targeted campaigns that can build the political will to advance and implement governance
reforms. In places where solid policies are already in place but not adequately enforced, funders can support
efforts to illuminate shortcomings, encourage stronger implementation, and make local leaders more
accountable to the communities they serve.
Philanthropy can also support performance standards that highlight water imbalances, improve water
efficiency, and increase public awareness of water issues. Where historic approaches to meeting environmental
needs have faltered, philanthropy can support science-based, multi-stakeholder processes to establish
ecosystem needs and shape new governance approaches that integrate human and environmental uses.
Philanthropy can convene stakeholders, decision-makers, and local leaders to find common ground, build
consensus for change, transfer knowledge across regional efforts, and help develop overarching standards
and guidelines. Funders can also support visionary leaders and spokespeople who are leading reform efforts
and articulating the need for reform to important constituencies. Working with social equity, tribal leaders,
and environmental groups, philanthropy can help ensure that governance reforms do not neglect the
interests of disadvantaged communities or the environment.
Examples of near-term opportunities
•Implement performance standards or ratings to highlight solutions to water imbalances, clarify
data needs, and increase public awareness.
•Support and highlight the efforts of visionary leaders by fostering a network of local and regional
water managers, supporting leadership development in the water sector, and incentivizing
coordination among agencies.
•Support effective implementation of California’s new groundwater laws as well as exploration of
promising ways to better manage groundwater in Texas and Arizona.
•Advance negotiations to provide restoration flows in key habitats, such as the Colorado River Delta,
and expand innovative agreements, such as the Colorado River System Conservation Program.
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Drive decisions with data
Objective: Accelerate the development of open data and information systems to support
sustainable management.
Critical obstacles to sustainable water management include the lack of accessible water data and tools that
support timely and science-based decision making, as well as an informed and supportive public. In many
places, we simply do not know who is taking water, where and when they are using it, or for what purposes.
New data technologies have transformed other disciplines, but these analysis and visualization tools,
which are critical for water markets and precision management, are still not widely applied in the water
world. Decision-makers need accurate, timely data to understand current conditions, identify sustainability
problems, illuminate possible solutions, track progress, and adapt along the way. Stakeholders need easyto-understand metrics of water conditions so they can make sure managers and policymakers protect the
environment and the public’s water supplies.
The water field also needs to do a better job of analyzing existing information and communicating trends in
order to resolve complex issues and justify changes in direction or large expenditures. Philanthropic efforts
to drive decisions with more and better data will increase the sense of urgency for change. At the same time,
the efforts will build capacity to make water management decisions more efficient, effective, timely, and
inclusive.
Roles for philanthropy
Philanthropy has a unique role to play in elevating water data as an issue of concern. For example, funders
can help promote a vision for open, accessible data and advance standards that ensure water information is
available to empower citizens, agencies, NGOs, and others to make better decisions. Philanthropy can also
encourage the adoption of promising technologies, such as satellite-based monitoring of water use, and
mobilize citizen science to address some of the West’s greatest water data needs.
Philanthropy can broker and catalyze relationships between sectors, including government and businesses,
to advance innovations and spur additional investments in water data. Funders can also help to build bridges
between researchers and practitioners to gain a practical view of data challenges and work collaboratively to
solve critical problems.
Examples of near-term opportunities
•D
evelop a shared vision for—and communicate the importance of—open and transparent
water information systems.
•Support efforts to increase and optimize the funding available for data and information systems.
•Support the development of a water data inventory—including standards used, frequency of
collection, quality, and accessibility—and fund targeted research and citizen science to help fill
the most significant data gaps, such as consumptive water use, water quality issues, and
environmental data.
•Support user-centered projects that home in on specific water challenges where data can be
transformative for key users, such as urban water managers, agricultural water districts,
conservation interests, and environmental justice advocates.
•Encourage transparent data systems that support water markets by making data on water rights,
water use, and environmental conditions more reliable and accessible.
•Support modeling to show how changing reservoir operations can extend supplies and provide
environmental flows.
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Strengthen communications and build political will
Objective: Improve the field’s strategic communications capacity and build the political will and
constituencies needed to support water management reforms.
Making our water use more sustainable hinges on effectively communicating solutions to pressing
problems and building the political will for needed changes. On issues ranging from health care to climate
change, funders and grantees have shown they can increase the demand for change among a broad set of
constituencies by helping to develop and deploy effective communications strategies.
Everyone has a fundamental interest in clean, reliable water, yet the discussions surrounding water policies
and practices are typically dominated by insiders. Key stakeholders are often missing from the discussion
and water’s political, economic, scientific, and engineering complexities can make the material dry and
inaccessible. Moreover, water issues are typically ignored except during times of drought or severe flooding,
when the options for implementing sustainable solutions have narrowed.
Roles for philanthropy
Strengthening communications and building political will are threaded through all of the priority strategies,
and all of the funding action plans will detail how philanthropy can support coalition-building, strong
outreach, and effective communications to advance their specific objectives.
Drawing on successes in other fields, philanthropy can help raise awareness of water issues, expose
problems, engage citizens, support leaders, and advance support for solutions. Philanthropy can connect
with and strengthen the voices of new, underrepresented, and disadvantaged constituencies to advocate for
sustainable management while explaining water’s connections to health, food, and other compelling issues.
Support for applied research in the social and behavioral sciences can shed new light on how and why
people use water, thereby informing effective water policy, management, and communications.
Examples of near-term opportunities
• Improve public and policymaker understanding of water problems and solutions by supporting
organizations that analyze and report objectively on water issues, including by using new
information-sharing and visualization technologies.
• Analyze the current state of public opinion and personal values connected to water in order to
develop more effective messages and messengers.
•D
esign and implement a news aggregation initiative to raise the level of discourse, help frame the
water narrative, and advance sustainable solutions.
•E
xplore supporting other activities, such as convening a high-profile commission to elevate water
issues and increasing engagement with funders working in other sectors connected to water.
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Accelerate innovation
Objective: Accelerate the development and deployment of innovative technologies and practices
to advance goals in the agricultural, urban, environmental, and energy sectors.
New technologies and practices can accelerate transformative changes in water management. Recent
innovations, such as the WaterSmart technology that tracks and reports urban water use, can reinforce the
efforts of water users and water managers. Accelerating advances in stormwater management and green
infrastructure can help cities become more self-reliant, thereby reducing the pressure to build costly and
environmentally damaging dams and diversions. For environmental water needs, new low-cost stream
gauges offer the potential to rapidly report critical details on local water conditions so that managers can
target their strategies to benefit fish and wildlife. Improved information systems and forecasting can help
insulate our water systems against extreme weather events.
Other innovations do not involve new technology but instead take new approaches using existing tools. An
emerging example from agriculture is deficit irrigation, which can support profitable crop yields while using
less water, thereby improving agriculture’s flexibility in the face of more variable water supplies. Some of the
most exciting innovations are new practices that integrate urban, environmental, and agricultural water uses.
For example, deliberately flooding farmland during wet periods can provide habitat for migratory birds while
at the same time recharging groundwater to improve dry-year water supplies for both farms and cities.
Roles for philanthropy
Philanthropy can play an important role in testing and refining new technologies and strategies by supporting
pioneering research and development, then helping practitioners overcome obstacles that impede the rapid
implementation of the best ideas. Funders can also help build and strengthen networks of practitioners
and developers to scale up deployment of innovations and transfer them to other locations. By supporting
innovators and helping to expand the pipeline of new water ideas—whether they originate from businesses,
universities, or elsewhere—philanthropy can accelerate the adoption of transformative practices and reduce
the risks of any undesirable consequences.
Examples of near-term opportunities
•Partner with other private and public sector efforts to identify the most innovative ideas related to
water and facilitate their adoption.
•Advance urban water conservation technologies by testing solutions, such as new water
measurement tools.
•Support testing to quantify the water savings and crop productivity of planned deficit irrigation and
other non-fallowing approaches to reducing agricultural water use.
•Support testing of flood irrigation of agricultural lands for groundwater recharge and bird habitat, and
support implementation and evaluation of rangeland management practices to increase recharge.
•Advance development and implementation of low-cost stream gauging technologies.
•Support the use of crowd-sourced information and citizen science to advance water sustainability.
•Support development of low-cost treatment technologies that can be affordably implemented by
small water systems.
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IV. Funding action plans
To ramp up implementation of the priority strategies and advance sustainable water management,
coordinated philanthropic action is urgently needed. WFI is working with funders, grantees, and other
partners to develop detailed funding action plans for philanthropy to advance the priority strategies in the
near term while laying the groundwork for longer-term systemic change (Figure 3).
Figure 3:
Funding action plans and priority strategies
Priority Strategies
Shape
Healthy
Water
Markets
Develop
New Funding
Sources
Improve
Water
Governance
Drive Decisions
With Data
PRIMARY
FOCUS
SECONDARY
FOCUS
Strengthen
Communications
and Build
Political Will
Accelerate
Innovation
California
Drought
Lower Colorado
River Basin
Funding
Action
Plans
Data
Impact
Investment
Communications
and Political Will*
Water Markets*
*Being developed
The set of actions in the plans vary according to the strategy, current circumstances, and geography. In
some cases, such as data and communications, the plans describe Westwide opportunities to strengthen
tools or approaches. By contrast, the regionally focused action plans ddressing the California drought and
Lower Colorado River Basin help advance multiple priority strategies in a specific place and are tailored to
suit regional conditions.
Additional plans—and campaigns and funding opportunities within the plans—will be developed based on
the field’s needs, funder interests, opportunities to make progress, and other factors.
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
21
In selecting funding action plans, WFI is
considering the following criteria:
• Alignment with priority strategies:
Activities that clearly advance the priority
strategies, either Westwide, across a region,
or in a location that can export its lessons
learned to other places.
• Timeliness or need: Opportunities that
are ripe or essential for advancing
priority strategies.
• Overall potential for impact: Activities
or approaches that show potential for
dramatically improved water management.
• Scale or transferability: Solutions that
operate at scale, scale easily, or offer easily
transferable lessons.
• Relevance to philanthropic influence:
Approaches that play to philanthropy’s
strengths and emphasize methods that
can be implemented through NGOs,
educational campaigns, research, or pilots.
•Innovative approaches: Approaches that
include innovative roles for funders willing
to experiment, take risks, and learn from
their efforts.
• Funder interest: Actions that have
considerable support among funders
who can effectively resource them.
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The table below summarizes the funding action plans that are in various stages of development and how
each relates to the priority strategies. Below the table is a brief description of each funding action plan.
Funding
Action Plan
Description
Priority Strategies
Addressed
California
Drought
Leverages high level of political will in the context
of California’s drought to increase funding for
water management, build healthy water markets,
and improve regional self-reliance.
• Shape healthy markets
• Develop new funding sources
• Advance integrated governance
• Strengthen communications
• Drive decisions with data
Focuses on a set of near-term efforts in the Lower
Basin, such as a binational agreement, that will
both address the current imbalance and set the
groundwork for additional innovative reforms of
basin-wide management and governance.
• Advance integrated governance
Identifies near-term opportunities for improving
and integrating water data and scaling up the use
of innovative technologies to gather, analyze, and
communicate data. Includes early work to build
support for data standards.
• Drive decisions with data
Describes approaches to increase private
investment in sustainable water management
solutions. Identifies how philanthropy and NGOs
can work with impact investors to implement
innovative financing approaches.
• Develop new funding sources
Communications and Political Will*
Will identify near-term opportunities, such as
expanded water journalism, to improve the field’s
communications capacity, build political will,
and cultivate diverse constituencies needed to
support water reforms.
• Strengthen communications
Water Markets*
Will establish priority, near-term steps to
encourage water transactions and ensure
transactions are transparent, equitable, and
beneficial for the environment.
• Shape healthy markets
Lower Colorado River Basin
Data
Impact
Investment
• Shape healthy markets
• Develop new funding sources
• Strengthen communications
• Supports all other strategies
• Advance integrated governance
• Shape healthy markets
• Supports all other strategies
• Develop new funding sources
• Advance integrated governance
• Drive decisions with data
*Being developed.
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California Drought Funding Action Plan
A historic drought and the attendant media coverage have created a unique opportunity for the Water
Foundation to take swift and bold action on multiple fronts to transform California’s water policies. This
funding action plan outlines an approach to resolving water management challenges during the remaining
three years of the Brown Administration. The Governor and key opinion leaders have identified solutions in
the state’s Water Action Plan, and the Water Foundation’s approach builds from these common interests to
create significant and durable policy reforms. The focus for the next three years is to:
• Increase funding for sustainable water management solutions. This effort includes reforming the
state constitution so that local water agencies can more easily raise revenues for stormwater capture
and flood control, implementing tiered pricing to encourage water conservation, and extending
lifeline rates to low-income households that cannot afford to pay their water bills. This work will also
advance efforts to establish a fee to help pay for unmet infrastructure and water management needs,
including investments in drought resiliency.
• Expand opportunities to support healthy water markets. Work related to water markets includes
improving the collection, integration, and availability of water and habitat data to support data
visualization tools to expedite the review of voluntary water transfers. Additional work will advance
reforms to encourage voluntary transfers within regions and facilitate instream flow dedications and
environmental water transfers.
• Improve regional self-reliance of local water supplies. This work includes advancing conservation
and water use efficiency targets within regions; advancing reforms to connect water supply
availability to local land-use planning decisions, including requiring urban water management plans
to incorporate climate change predictions in water supply analysis; and advancing safe drinking
water solutions for disadvantaged communities that lack reliable water supplies.
The California drought plan includes efforts to change the public discourse on the state’s water management
system by engaging with diverse coalitions of thought leaders from the worlds of business, labor, agriculture,
politics, and advocacy.
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Lower Colorado River Basin Funding Action Plan
Conditions are ripe in the Lower Colorado River Basin to advance the goals of balance and resilience at
scale. The near-term window of opportunity in the Lower Colorado arises from several factors. A 15-year
drought has forced major water users and decision-makers to acknowledge openly that business as usual
is too risky and that collaborative solutions are urgently needed. Moreover, a confluence of deadlines in
2017 will drive action and can be leveraged to build political will for change. These and other conditions,
including the ability to build on existing efforts by NGOs and funders, present an opportunity to develop and
implement solutions that will benefit both significant environmental resources, such as wetland habitats at
the Salton Sea and Colorado River Delta, and major economic interests, including cities, agriculture, tribes,
and industry.
Seizing this moment, the funding action plan for the Lower Colorado River region is aimed at achieving
several interrelated agreements to reduce annual over-allocation in a manner that protects and restores
critical freshwater-dependent habitats, including:
•Binational agreement. Through flexible water management, this effort aims to provide flows for the
continued restoration of the Colorado River Delta.
• Salton Sea. This work focuses on an agreement that addresses restoration needs in a manner that
provides for flexible water management that responds to changing Colorado River conditions, as well
as provides increased opportunity for geothermal development and agricultural diversification in the
Imperial Irrigation District.
• Central Arizona demand. This work centers on an agreement to flexibly manage a portion of the
Central Arizona Project’s allocation to agriculture to help re-balance Lake Mead.
This funding action plan’s goal is to secure agreements, based on cooperative action, to stabilize Lake
Mead’s surface elevation and lay the groundwork for sustainable water management over the long term.
Approaches include targeted and well-designed voluntary water transactions; increased funding for
proactive water management, including from private and government investment; informed and deliberate
allocation of water for environmental needs; increased collaboration of urban, tribal, and agricultural water
interests toward integrated solutions; and effective communication of the necessity and political feasibility
of actions.
Data Funding Action Plan
Information systems can transform water management, but inadequate technology, incomplete information,
and insufficient political will to tackle these challenges have stymied progress. Data is not a top priority for
many important actors, and water users often struggle to employ data. Philanthropy can play a pivotal role in
lowering these barriers, especially when the moment is ripe to drive political change.
The funding action plan includes two types of investments. Enabling initiatives create the conditions required
to scale data solutions across the West and target barriers to the effective use of water data. User-centered
projects home in on substantive water challenges where data could be transformative for key users. Each
user-centered project develops an integrated solution that meets the needs of specific data users—including
urban water managers, agricultural water districts, environmental justice advocates, and conservation
interests—and addresses the multiple barriers they face.
These two types of investments are mutually supportive. The enabling initiatives create the environment
required to scale the solutions developed in the user-centered projects across a wider range of users and
places. Meanwhile, user-centered projects create tangible advances and examples of success that can help
to cultivate data champions in the water community.
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The funding action plan focuses on the following efforts to ensure that data drives smart, sustainable
water decisions:
• Norms and standards support data-driven decision making. This work will establish a vision
for open and transparent water information systems in the West.
• Technology and information inform water decisions. This effort will improve technologies for
analysis and visualization of water information.
• User-centered projects meet challenges in water management. These projects develop and
test solutions that will meet the needs of specific users and help ensure that data improve
decision making.
Impact Investment Funding Action Plan
A key challenge for philanthropy is to help increase private investment in sustainable water management
solutions. Traditional constraints on private investment in water management are changing rapidly, and
there are now substantial opportunities within existing regulatory frameworks. Impact investing strategies
can realign stakeholder interests toward sustainable management and achieve broader water management
gains, such as mitigating water risk, reversing declines in watershed health, and reducing threats to both
human water uses and the ecosystem services provided by natural systems. A recent report by Encourage
Capital and Squire Patton Boggs, Liquid Assets: Investing for Impact in the Colorado River Basin, explored
nine potential investment models for addressing a variety of complex water challenges in the Colorado River
basin. These models and approaches include:
• Agricultural crop conversion and ranchland investment. This effort would deploy private capital to
finance improvements in agricultural water use, resulting in water savings and modernized farming
operations. These improvements could involve conversion to higher-value or lower-water-use
crops, with water savings reallocated to other needs, including the environment. Another approach
is to provide capital for ranches to convert to sustainable practices that could improve grassland
conditions, benefit soil health, and improve livestock outputs.
• Municipal green bonds with environmental conditions. This approach includes providing
investments for mid-sized municipalities with limited financing options to upgrade water delivery
infrastructure, with the funding tied to implementation of more environmentally sustainable
approaches.
• Next generation community water trusts. This approach uses community water trusts to facilitate
water efficiency investments, water trading, and improved river flows. The model involves the use of
private investment to develop a common pool of water entitlements, water savings, and/or changes
in the use of diversion and storage infrastructure to address water supply risks while generating
investment returns.
• Forest health environmental impact bonds. This model envisions the use of private capital to
provide up-front investments for large-scale forest health improvements that can reduce wildfire
risks and improve both the quantity and quality of water. The investments would be repaid through
lower fire suppression costs and payments from downstream beneficiaries.
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Identifying and developing these new model deals will take significant resources—including foundation
program-related investments—particularly if they are to be structured in a way that will deliver the desired
environmental, economic, and social outcomes, avoid undesirable side effects that can come from poorly
planned private investments, and still attract the necessary private capital.
Communications and Political Will Funding Action Plan
Philanthropy can play an important role in improving the water field’s communications capacity and
also help build the political will, constituencies, and leadership needed to support sustainable water
management. Communications, coalition-building, and other efforts to generate political support for
needed reforms are threaded through the other WFI strategies and funding action plans. In many cases, the
necessary communications strategies and resources depend heavily on the local context or particular issues.
The communications and political will funding action plan, which is being developed, focuses on broader,
field-wide efforts to raise awareness of water problems, highlight sustainable solutions, hold institutions
accountable, and build the political will needed to advance new policies and practices.
Water Markets Funding Action Plan
The funding action plan for shaping healthy water markets will build a coordinated approach to better
leverage current philanthropic investments and attract more funding to the field. Many water transaction
programs already exist, and a number of well-developed efforts are already underway to expand and
improve existing water transaction programs, as well as to test new transaction models. The water
markets funding action plan, which is being developed, will focus on how different types of philanthropic
investments can both accelerate and expand use of voluntary water transactions while ensuring they
provide environmental benefits and minimize undesirable impacts, particularly for rural or disadvantaged
communities.
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V. A collaborative approach for philanthropy
This blueprint summarizes how philanthropy can help advance sustainable water management at a scale
never attempted in the water field. Funders of all types—from individual donors to community foundations to
the largest philanthropies—must play a crucial role in addressing 21st century water challenges to ensure that
cities, rural communities, farms, and wildlife all have access to the clean water they need to thrive in the face
of a changing climate and a growing population.
By working to implement the set of funding action plans described above, water funders can:
• Advance meaningful progress toward sustainable water management in bellwether regions of the West.
• Demonstrate the promise of improved data systems, water markets, and impact investment.
• Build the water field’s capacity to communicate and increase support for water solutions.
The set of funding action plans defined here is a starting point for the more comprehensive, long-term
philanthropic action needed to achieve the goals of balance and resilience. Following this model, water
funders can build and implement these and other funding action plans to advance the full suite of priority
strategies. By actively collaborating and aligning funding with the priority strategies over time, water funders
have the potential to:
• Evaluate progress and better target investments.
• Align and amplify the work of funders and their partners and attract additional resources to the field.
• Scale up the solutions and reforms demonstrated through the funding action plans.
• Make measurable progress toward the goals of balance and resilience.
Building the field
The field needs the capacity to implement the strategies and funding action plans described in this
blueprint (Figure 4). We need capable, adequately resourced practitioners, experts, and champions to
pursue advocacy campaigns, conduct research, represent stakeholders, communicate solutions, explore
new ideas, accelerate innovation, and lead all of the actions that will ensure individuals and institutions
make the right water management decisions, day in and day out. We also need to amplify the voices and
expand the constituencies that advocate for solutions to our water challenges, marrying efforts to make our
communities more sustainable with strategies to conserve biodiversity and other resources.
In some parts of the water field, organizations are already working together to implement funding action
plans. In other areas, such as data and communications, additional capacity may be needed before
considering new approaches, replicating approaches in multiple geographies, or taking local successes
to regional or statewide levels. Water funders will need to work together to build capacity in and across
organizations to carry out the priority strategies for philanthropy.
Collaborative approaches
Inherent in the ambition and structure of this blueprint is the recognition that no single philanthropic entity
can successfully advance sustainable water management, in the United States or the American West, at the
scale needed to address the challenges we face.
To change entrenched systems and transform water management, funders and their grantees will need
to partner effectively with each other, businesses, government, and other organizations. Several members
of the Steering Committee are already engaged in highly collaborative approaches, such as pooling funds
through the Water Foundation.
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Figure 4:
Goals, priority strategies, and funding action plans
Bring basins into balance for people and nature
Strengthen resilience of water systems
Shape healthy water markets
Improve water governance
Develop new funding sources
Drive decisions with data
Lower
Colorado
River Basin
California
Drought
Binational –
Colorado Delta
Increase
funding
Water
markets
Regional
self-reliance
Salton Sea
Central Arizona
demand
Accelerate innovation
Communications
Impact
and Political
Investment
Will*
Data
Norms and
standards
Strengthen communications
and build political will
Water
Markets*
Crop and rangeland
management
Technology
and information
User-centered
projects
Next generation
water trust
Municipal
green bonds
Forest health
bonds
*Being developed
Ultimately, greater coordination and collaboration in water philanthropy can result in expanded and more
effective funding for scalable solutions to today’s water problems. Funders working together can deliver
powerful messages to policymakers and industry, leverage public and private sector funding, and identify
entry points for funders eager to engage. In other fields, ranging from climate change to public health, we
have seen how funders can effectively work together to identify priorities, share lessons learned, fill gaps,
and complement each other’s strategies. Water issues are ripe—indeed overdue—for philanthropic attention.
With population growth, climate change, and other pressures mounting, philanthropy must play an even
more pivotal role in transforming how we manage water. Working together, funders can contribute to
healthy ecosystems, vibrant economies, and sustainable water systems that are balanced and resilient.
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
Appendix 1: Water Funder Initiative Steering Committee
The Steering Committee’s purpose is to play a guiding role at a pivotal moment in addressing 21st century
water challenges. The committee guides WFI’s work as it accelerates progress toward more efficient and
effective water systems for people and the environment.
The nine foundations on WFI’s Steering Committee are leaders in philanthropy who provide support and
attract new resources for water and related fields. The Steering Committee’s primary responsibilities include
supporting collaborative opportunities to accelerate progress on water, engaging other funders, and
providing core financial support for WFI as needed. Representatives of the group—members of the Working
Group—help to shape and serve as lead funders for priority strategies and funding action plans, involving
partners beyond the Steering Committee to represent appropriate geographies and strategic interests.
The table below lists members of WFI’s Steering Committee and its Working Group during development of
the blueprint. Members of the Working Group are indicated with an asterisk (*).
Foundation
Steering Committee members
S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation
Lauren B. Dachs, President
Allison Harvey Turner, Program Director, Environment Program*
Joya Banerjee, Senior Program Officer, Environment Program*
Energy Foundation
Eric Heitz, President
Katie McCormack, Program Director, Western Region*
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Larry Kramer, President
Tom Steinbach, Program Director, Environment Program*
Michael Scott, Program Officer, Environment Program*
Katherine Lorenz, President
The Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation Marilu Hastings, Vice President, Sustainability Program*
Sarah Richards, Water Program Officer*
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
Carol Larson, President and CEO
Chris DeCardy, Vice President and Director of Programs*
Walt Reid, Director, Conservation and Science Program*
Curt Riffle, Program Officer, Western Conservation Program*
Pisces Foundation
David Beckman, President*
Nancy Stoner, Water Program Director and Senior Fellow*
The Rockefeller Foundation
Judith Rodin, President
Fred Boltz, Managing Director for Ecosystems*
Walton Family Foundation
Barry Gold, Director, Environment Program
Margaret Bowman, Deputy Director, Environment Focus Area*
Water Foundation
Michael Mantell, President, Resources Legacy Fund
Lester Snow, Executive Director*
Andrew Fahlund, Deputy Director*
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
30
Appendix 2: List of experts consulted
Through workshops and interviews, the Water Funder Initiative formally consulted close to 150 experts in
water and related fields in 2015. We also sought input from many others on an informal basis.
Name
Title
Organization
Contact
Abel Aronovitz
Executive Director
V2 Capital, LLC
Interview
Chris Austin
Creator and Publisher
Maven’s Notebook
Interview
Carole Baker
Executive Director
Texas Water Foundation
Workshop
Joya Banerjee
Senior Program Officer,
Environment Program
The S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation
Steering Committee
David Beckman
President
Pisces Foundation
Steering Committee
Susan Bell
Managing Director
Water Funder Initiative
Workshop
Robert Berger
Program Director, Arizona
Nina Mason Pulliam
Charitable Trust
Workshop
Ariane Bertrand
Portfolio Manager, Food and
Environment
Emerson Collective
Interview
Jonathan Birdsong
Director, Western Partnership
Office
National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation
Interview
Jason Blau
Associate Principal
Redstone Strategy Group
Workshop
Phil Bobel
Assistant Director of Public
Works, Environmental Services
Division Manager
City of Palo Alto
Workshop
Giulio Boccaletti
Global Managing Director,
Water
The Nature Conservancy
Interview
Fred Boltz
Managing Director for
Ecosystems
The Rockefeller Foundation
Steering Committee
Charlton Bonham
Director
California Department of
Fish and Wildlife
Interview
Ashley Boren
Executive Director
Sustainable Conservation
Workshop
Margaret Bowman
Deputy Director, Environment
Focus Area
The Walton Family Foundation
Steering Committee
Alf Brandt
Executive Director
Dividing the Waters Program,
The National Judicial College
Interview
Lynn Broaddus
President
Broadview Collaborative, Inc.
Interview
David Brotherton
Founder and President
Brotherton Strategies
Interview
Franny Canfield
Knowledge and Program
Director
Environmental Grantmakers
Association
Interview
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
Celeste Cantú
General Manager
Santa Ana Watershed Project
Authority
Workshop
Allison Carney
Community Manager
Council on Foundations
Interview
Anne Castle
Former Assistant Secretary for
Water and Science
U.S. Department of the Interior
Workshop
Joe Caves
Principal and Founder
Conservation Strategies Group
Interview
Jennifer Clary
California Water Program
Manager
Clean Water Fund
Interview
John Cochrane
Associate Director, Social
Innovation
Council on Foundations
Interview
Rick Cole
Deputy Mayor
City of Los Angeles
Workshop
Beth Conover
Senior Program Officer
Gates Family Foundation
Interview
Heather Cooley
Water Program Director
Pacific Institute
Interview
Peter Culp
Attorney and Partner
Squire Patton Boggs
Interview
Kevin Curtis
Director of Strategic
Partnerships, Climate Action
Campaign
U.S. Climate Action Network
Interview
Alex Davis
Water Resources Manager
Colorado Parks and Wildlife
Workshop
Grant Davis
General Manager
Sonoma County Water Agency
Workshop
Martha Davis
Executive Manager for Policy
Development
Inland Empire Utilities Agency
Workshop
Tom Davis
Manager
Yuma County Water Users’
Association
Workshop
Lois DeBacker
Managing Director, Environment The Kresge Foundation
Chris DeCardy
Vice President and Director
of Programs
The David and Lucile Packard
Foundation
Steering Committee
Dan Dooley
Of Counsel
Bolen Fransen Sawyers LLP
Workshop
Ethan Elkind
Associate Director of Climate
Change and Business Program
UC Berkeley & UCLA Schools
of Law
Workshop
Matt Elliott
Principal
California Environmental
Associates
Interview
Jim Enote
Executive Director
Colorado Plateau Foundation
Interview
Andrew Fahlund
Deputy Director
Water Foundation
Steering Committee
Terry Fankhauser
Executive Vice President
Colorado Cattlemen’s
Association
Workshop
Kathleen Ferris
Executive Director
Arizona Municipal Water Users
Association
Workshop
David Festa
Vice President, Ecosystems
Environmental Defense Fund
Interview
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
Interview
32
Jim Fiedler
Chief Operating Officer
Santa Clara Valley Water District
- Water Utility Enterprise
Workshop
Randy Fiorini
Chair
California Delta Stewardship
Council
Workshop
Laurel Firestone
Co-Executive Director and
Co-Founder
Community Water Center
Interview
Blair Calvert
Fitzsimmons
Executive Director
Texas Agricultural Land Trust
Workshop
John Fleck
Journalist and Writer-inResidence
The University of New Mexico
Workshop
Steve Fleischli
Director and Senior Attorney,
Water Program
Natural Resources Defense
Council
Workshop
Jenn Fox
Initiative Manager
Water Funder Initiative
Interview
Leslie FriedmanJohnson
Partner
Conservation and Natural
Resources Group
Workshop
George Frisvold
Professor
The University of Arizona
Workshop
Ron Gastelum
Former General Manager
Metropolitan Water District
Workshop
Jocelyn Gibbon
Principal
Freshwater Policy Consulting
Workshop
Peter Gleick
President
Pacific Institute
Interview
Barry Gold
Director, Environment
Program
The Walton Family Foundation
Steering Committee
Mark Gold
IoES Acting Director, Coastal
Center Director, and Adjunct
Professor
University of California Los
Angeles
Workshop
Dominique Gómez
Director of Market
Development
WaterSmart Software
Interview
Kristen Grimm
President
Spitfire Strategies
Workshop
Adel Hagekhalil
Assistant Director
City of Los Angeles Bureau of
Sanitation
Workshop
Maurice Hall
Water Program Lead
Water Funder Initiative
Workshop
Eric Hallstein
Economist and Director of
Conservation Investments
The Nature Conservancy of
California
Workshop
Ellen Hanak
Director of the Water
Policy Center
Public Policy Institute of
California
Workshop
Brent Harris
Principal
Redstone Strategy Group
Interview
David Harrison
Senior Water Resources
Consultant
Moses, Wittemyer, Harrison, and
Woodruff, P.C.
Interview
Allison Harvey Turner
Program Director, Environment
Program
The S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation
Steering Committee
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
Marilu Hastings
Vice President, Sustainability
Programs
The Cynthia and George
Mitchell Foundation
Steering Committee
Taylor Hawes
Colorado River Program
The Nature Conservancy
Workshop
Timothy Hawkes
Director, Utah Water Project
Trout Unlimited
Workshop
David Hayes
Former Deputy Secretary and
COO
U.S. Department of the Interior
Interview
Stefan Heck
Research Fellow; Former
Director
Stanford Law School;
McKinsey & Company
Workshop
Eric Heitz
President
The Energy Foundation
Steering Committee
John Howard
Senior Manager, Global Public
Policy and Government Affairs
Dell Computer
Workshop
Bill Hull
Group Chair
Consultative Group on
Biological Diversity
Interview
Matt James
President and Co-Founder
Next Generation
Interview
Steve Johnson
Partner
Conservation and Natural
Resources Group
Interview
Susan Kaderka
Gulf Coast Regional Director
National Wildlife Federation
Workshop
Brad Kahn
Founder
Groundwork Strategies
Interview
A.G. Kawamura
Former Secretary
California Department of Food
& Agriculture/Orange County
Produce
Workshop
Mary Kelly
Principal
Parula LLC
Workshop
Doug Kenney
Director, Getches-Wilkinson
Center Western Water Policy
Program
University of Colorado Law
School
Interview
Jim Klinker
Chief Administrative Officer
Arizona Farm Bureau
Workshop
Craig Knowles
Chairman
Murray-Darling Basin Authority
Interview
Eric Kuhn
General Manager
Colorado River Conservation
District
Workshop
Clay Landry
Managing Director
WestWater Research
Interview
Jim Leape
Consulting Professor
Stanford Woods Institute;
Stanford School of Earth
Sciences
Workshop
Kai Lee
Program Officer, Conservation
and Science Program
The David and Lucile Packard
Foundation
Workshop
Rachel Leon
Executive Director
Environmental Grantmakers
Association
Interview
Sharlene Leurig
Director, Water Program
Ceres
Interview
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
34
Chloe Lieberknecht
Director of Government
Relations and Freshwater
Protection
The Nature Conservancy
of Texas
Workshop
Andy Lipkis
Founder and President
Treepeople
Workshop
Mark Loch
Director
Redstone Strategy Group
Workshop
Jim Lochhead
CEO/Manager
Denver Water
Workshop
Lynn Lohr
Executive Director
Consultative Group on
Biological Diversity
Interview
Katherine Lorenz
President
The Cynthia and George
Mitchell Foundation
Steering Committee
Elizabeth Love
Senior Program Officer,
Environment, Health and Arts &
Culture
Houston Endowment
Workshop
Shelley Luce
Executive Director
Environment Now
Workshop
Jay Lund
Director, Center for Watershed
Sciences and Professor of Civil
and Environmental Engineering
University of California at Davis
Workshop
Larry MacDonnell
Professor Emeritus
University of Colorado
Law School
Interview
Robert Mace
Deputy Administrator
Texas Water Development
Board
Interview
Steven Malloch
Principal
Western Water Futures, LLC
Interview
Tom Maloney
Executive Director
Tejon Ranch Conservancy
Interview
Felicia Marcus
Chair
California State Water
Resources Control Board
Workshop
Alex Martinez
Ford Fellow
The Rockefeller Foundation
Interview
Tom Mason
Chairman
Texas Water Foundation
Workshop
Katie McCormack
Program Director, Western
Region
The Energy Foundation
Steering Committee
Michael McCoy
Senior Program Officer
The Meadows Foundation
Workshop
Brewster McCracken
President and CEO
Pecan Street Project
Workshop
William McDonald
Owner and Manager;
Regional Director and Deputy
Commissioner;
Director
McDonald Water Policy
Consulting; Bureau of
Reclamation; Colorado Water
Conservation Board
Workshop
Bart Miller
Director, Water Program
Western Resource Advocates
Interview
Kevin Moran
Senior Director, Water Program
Environmental Defense Fund
Workshop
Jeffrey Mount
Founding Director, Faculty
Emeritus; Senior Fellow
UC Davis Center for Watershed
Sciences; Public Policy Institute
of California
Workshop
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
Marc Nathanson
Chairman
Falcon Waterfree
Technologies
Workshop
Ben Nuvamsa
Founder and President
KIVA Institute, LLC
Interview
Adrian Oglesby
Director, Utton Center
University of New Mexico
Workshop
Mark Pestrella
Chief Deputy Director
Los Angeles County
Department of Public Works
Workshop
Jennifer Pitt
Colorado River Project
Director
Environmental Defense Fund
Interview
Kate Poole
Senior Attorney and Litigation
Director, Water Program
Natural Resources Defense
Council
Interview
Sarah Porter
Executive Director, Kyl Center
Arizona State University
Workshop
Andrew Purkey
Director of Western Water
Programs
National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation
Interview
Walt Reid
Director, Conservation and
Science Program
The David and Lucile Packard
Foundation
Steering Committee
Michael Reuter
Director of Freshwater,
North America
The Nature Conservancy
Interview
Curt Riffle
Program Officer, Western
Conservation Program
The David and Lucile Packard
Foundation
Steering Committee
Bill Ritter, Jr.
Director
Center for the New Energy
Economy (CNEE) at Colorado
State University
Interview
David Rousseau
President
Salt River Project
Workshop
Mary Ruckelshaus
Consulting Professor; Managing
Director
Stanford Woods Institute;
Natural Capital Project
Interview
Andrew Sansom
Executive Director
The Meadows Center for Water
and the Environment
Interview; Workshop
Michael Scott
Program Officer, Environment
Program
The William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation
Steering Committee
Patricia Sekaquaptewa
Hopi Appellate Court Justice &
Assistant Professor
Alaska Native Studies and Rural
Development, University of
Alaska, Fairbanks
Interview
Ann Sewill
Vice President of Housing and
Economic Development
California Community
Foundation
Workshop
Peter Silva
President
Silva-Silva International
Workshop
Carter Smith
Director
Texas Department of Parks and
Wildlife
Interview
Lester Snow
Executive Director
Water Foundation
Steering Committee
Kathryn Sorensen
Water Services Director
City of Phoenix
Workshop
Stacey Steinbach
Executive Director
Texas Alliance of Groundwater
Districts
Workshop
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
36
Tom Steinbach
Program Director, Environment
Program
The William and Flora Hewlett
Foundation
Steering Committee
Nancy Stoner
Water Program Director;
Former Acting Assistant
Administrator for Water
Pisces Foundation; U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency
Steering Committee
Brian Stranko
Water Program Director
The Nature Conservancy
Interview
Martin Stuchtey
Director
McKinsey & Company
Interview
Tim Sullivan
Former Colorado State Director
The Nature Conservancy
Interview
Nancy Sutley
Chief Sustainability & Economic
Development Officer
Los Angeles Department of
Water and Power
Workshop
Leon Szeptycki
Executive Director
Stanford Woods Institute Water in the West
Workshop
Ann Tartre
Director of Corporate
Partnerships
Protect the Flows
Workshop
Melinda Taylor
Director, Kay Bailey Hutchinson
Center
University of Texas
Workshop
Mark Tercek
President and CEO
The Nature Conservancy
Interview
Barton “Buzz”
Thompson
Professor of Natural Resources
Law; Director
Stanford Law School;
Woods Institute
Workshop
Claire Thorp
Assistant Director, Western
Partnership Office
National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation
Interview
Sam Tucker
Director
Colorado River Sustainability
Campaign
Interview
Brad Udall
Senior Water and Climate
Research Scientist/Scholar
Colorado Water Institute,
Colorado State University
Workshop
Kathryn Viatella
Program Manager
Water Foundation
Workshop
Reagan Waskom
Director; Chair and Professor
Colorado Water Institute;
Colorado State University Water
Center
Workshop
Nancy White
Program Advisor, Water
TomKat Charitable Trust
Interview
David Yarnold
President and CEO
National Audubon Society
Interview
Scott Yates
Director, Western Water Project
Trout Unlimited
Workshop
Jay Ziegler
Director of External Affairs &
Policy, Sacramento
The Nature Conservancy
Workshop
Photo credits:
Front cover: Russell Schnitzer, Rio Grande River, CO
Water pump/irrigation: Maurice Hall, Sacramento Valley, CA
Cranes flying/back cover: Russell Schnitzer, sandhill cranes on the Platte River, NE
Dam: Maurice Hall, Folsom Dam, Folsom, CA
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
The Water Funder Initiative is a collaborative effort to identify and activate promising water solutions
through strategic philanthropic investments in the United States, starting in the West, where scarcity
and reliability of clean water are urgent issues. WFI is supported and guided by the S. D. Bechtel, Jr.
Foundation, Energy Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Cynthia and George
Mitchell Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Pisces Foundation, The Rockefeller
Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, and Water Foundation.
Water Funder Initiative Project Team
Susan Bell, Managing Director
Maurice Hall, Water Program Lead
Jenn Fox, Initiative Manager
Alexis Travis, Program Associate
Mitch Tobin, Sea to Snow Consulting
Mary Kelly, Parula LLC
Ethan Elkind, UC Berkeley & UCLA Schools of Law
Redstone Strategy Group
California Environmental Associates
TOWARD WATER SUSTAINABILITY: A BLUEPRINT FOR PHILANTHROPY
www.waterfunder.org